Get Lit! Opening night

And so the first night of Get Lit! 2003 is over. Some 30 people flocked to the Post Falls Library tonight to hear the trio of Dennis Held , Tom Davis and Dick Case each talk about how and why he got into poetry, each read from his respective work and each answer audiences questions about a variety of topics from work habits to subject matter.

Some high points:

Festival director Scott Poole introducing himself as the “your official Get Lit! stooge.”

Case talking about growing up in St. Maries and saying that by the time he had graduated from high school “the extent of the poetry I had read was ‘Hiawatha’ by Longfellow.”

Held describing how he tried to make sense of his troubled childhood. “I had this very clear sense at about 3 years old that if I understood language then things would all make sense.” After he realized that adults were no more clued in than he was, and that they were making things up as they went along, he said, “I had my first mid-life crisis at age 5.”

The trio, with Davis in the lead, convincing the crowd to stand and do the “Mootsy’s yes,” which entails bending over at the waist three times, and then after rising the final time yelling, “Yes!” “The power of words,” Davis said.